Daily temperature records will tumble as sizzling early season heat from a summerlike heat dome sends thermometers skyrocketing into the triple digits in parts of California and the West this week.
The official start of summer is just a few weeks away, but it will feel like July in much of the West as temperatures climb 20 degrees or more above average, the highest temperatures of the year so far for many locations.
Excessive heat warnings are in effect for more than 17 million people in California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona this week. The warnings are the most extreme form of heat alert issued by the National Weather Service and are used when widespread, dangerous heat is expected.
The soaring temperatures are being caused by a heat dome, a large area of high pressure that parks over an area, traps air and heats it with abundant sunshine for days or weeks. The resulting heat becomes more intense the longer a heat dome lasts.
Climate change effects are compounding, as polar caps melt they release trapped methane which is more effective greenhouse gas than CO2.
As temperatures heat up, people just gonna turn up HVAC more, more energy usage, which means we either get green real quick, or this feedback loop will continue until we break.
But all this is known. We’re all gonna be scrambling when we reach that point, spouting “We didn’t listen” like that episode of South Park about this very issue.
Meh, im sure the rich fucks have contingencies for themselves, so it’s all good.
But all this is known. We’re all gonna be scrambling when we reach that point, spouting “We didn’t listen” like that episode of South Park about this very issue.
That’s the thing though, we, the we being your average human on the planet, are put in a position to have very little power to do anything about it. In America specifically (not so sure about the rest of the world) you’re kept busy trying to manage your health insurance (if you have it), your retirement fund (if you have it), your job (that may or may not have unpaid on call), your home (maintaining and cleaning your home/apartment/townhouse, trying to do repairs yourself because you can’t afford to pay for others to do it as prices for service/repair work have skyrocketed), your food (it is too expensive to even buy fast food anymore so you gotta cook to save money), your car (gotta own a vehicle as the US doesn’t have meaningful public transport, gotta make sure it is insured, maintained, etc.), your bills (gotta juggle those credit card and points cards and discount cards to get the best deals on every purchase!), if you have children, then you have to manage all the facets of their lives as well including making their food, cleaning up after them, taking them to/from school and other extracurriculars, deal with any school system issues, and on and on.
By the end of the week, you just want to have five minutes to catch your breath, but you can’t, because you only (maybe) have two days off of work and those will be spent catching up on whatever chores you didn’t get done during the week.
Democratic governance was meant so that we could vote people into office to manage the governance, but now that is so bloated and broken, we also have to collectively stay on top of our nation, state, county, city’s issues so we can be aware and try and “fight” back whenever we can with a letter or a council meeting. Never going to have time to go to a protest or skip out of work for a week to protest with your work/dollar because living paycheck-to-paycheck with no safety net means you’re homeless if one thing fucks up.
The whole system (again, in the US at least) is designed to keep one so busy that one doesn’t even know their way out of the week, let alone to take individual action to collectively organize and kick these politicians and corporations in the teeth for destroying the human habitability of the planet.
You are absolutely right about all the challenges facing average Americans that keep us too busy to do a lot about issues like these.
Still, there are lots of different ways to help. Some do require more time, and are probably out of reach for someone who’s just barely getting by. But some require less.
Today I dropped off at the post office 350 hand written postcards to low propensity climate voters in my state. I wrote and addressed the postcards while I was watching TV, so it didn’t really take much more of my free time (I would have been watching TV anyways). Elections in my state have been decided by only a few hundred votes, so actions like this do make a difference.
Next week, I will be meeting with staff for my member of Congress in person in D.C. I have the luxury of having the time and money to make this happen, but if you pick up the phone or write an email every single month to your congressional office and mention climate change, it makes it much easier for us to get these meetings and get our point across. Pressure on congressional offices alone doesn’t get the job done, but it makes them take us more seriously when we meet with them and present a bill that we want them to support.
Congress is pretty dysfunctional right now, but we still have managed to get some climate friendly legislation through. Every bit of help and support we get along the way makes a difference.
The group I volunteer with is Citizens’ Climate Lobby, and I think they are the best, but there are other groups out there. The American Conversation Coalition is more right-leaning and has been gaining traction recently. The Sunrise Movement is more left-leaning, though for some reason I haven’t heard much from them recently, at least in my state. I’m sure there are other groups out there besides those three.
Dude responds to a post about having no time and money by saying he hand wrote hundreds of postcards in his free time and also volunteers…
Thanks for your reply. I think I might have introduced a bit of confusion here, as I’m making two points in a bit of an implicit way.
My first point is a bit of a refutation of the OP. It’s basically the same as you’ve heard from any other political non-profit: “you can make a difference with just 5 minutes of your time! It doesn’t matter if you’re broke and struggling under late-stage capitalism just like the rest of us, your voice matters!”
There is both truth, and deception in that statement.
The truth is that small actions do make a difference. I’ve seen the link between how getting more contacts from my district to congressional offices helps me set meetings with the office. Anyone can pick up the phone and call Congress, it doesn’t take a special skill, or money. Similarly with the postcard thing – if someone felt like doing it, and if postcards & stamps were provided by the group, it wouldn’t take a lot of extra time or money to do like a couple dozen, and I’m sure that person would feel more involved and empowered. I’m not trying to say everyone should do it, just that it takes less effort than you might think to make a real noticeable difference, even if you’re struggling under late-stage capitalism.
The deception is thinking that it is enough for a movement to rely solely on these actions as a strategy. It is not enough on its own and leads to slacktivism, and is probably part of why most of us have felt so burnt out for so long on the idea of making changes – we’ve been burned before (remember Net Neutrality?)
Therefore, my second point, and the reason that I shared a bit more about what I’ve been doing, is that I’m trying to give people a little bit of hope. I’m trying to build on the first point (it’s easier than you think to take a small action). And what I’m building on that to say is: “don’t worry that you (person who has very little time/money to contribute) aren’t doing enough, because I’m here to pick up the rest. I’ve got this. We are a team, so pass the ball to me, and put me in the play”.
What I’m trying to say is, a movement needs both pieces. Again, movements that have the first (popular pressure) but lack the second (volunteer development, engagement, active lobbying, etc.) tend to fizzle out like the Net Neutrality movement.
On the other hand, some movements have heavily dedicated and invested volunteers, but can’t convince an average American to do things like regularly contact their representative. The feedback we get in my state from congressional offices is something like 100 contacts per month, every month on a particular issue will cause them to start taking it more seriously. Without meeting that threshold, a movement will never get traction no matter how enthusiastic their core volunteers are. Nobody will take them seriously.
Of those 350 postcards, 330 were immediately thrown in the trash without being read.
Edit: Also 350 postcards with the proper postage would cost $185.50
I’m sure that many will be thrown away, and the cynical take sounds logical at face value. But that’s not what the data shows:
https://www.environmentalvoter.org/results
Postage costs were spread around among volunteers. Some people have more time than money, some have more money than time. Personally, I paid for about 250 postcard stamps, and got a roll of 100 from the group. Others got more or less rolls of stamps.
Cynicism among folks who care about climate change is understandable, and widespread, which is a big motivation for sending postcards targeting climate voters. The data shows that we tend to vote less than the average voter. If we really want the political changes that we say we do, then we need to show it and take action.
It’s entirely possible that it is too late to do anything about climate change. But if we act as if it’s true then we make it a certainty, where now it is only a probability.
Climate change realists (people that have common sense) voting less than the average population is not something I expected. If anyone believes that climate change is real and isn’t voting Democrat, you’re the problem.
Climate change has become reality because of apathy. Not evil actors. They’ve always been the minority relying on inaction.
Meh, im sure the rich fucks have contingencies for themselves, so it’s all good.
Yes. Die after everyone else does when they finally figure out that there’s nothing left to live for, money doesn’t mean shit if you’re king of a dead world.
🤣 The joke is that if society were to start collapsing, it won’t, but if, the rich people’s homes would be raided and looted first.
So the rich are fucking up doubley.
Is it just me or was ‘heat dome’ not even a thing like 10 years ago?
Brought to you by the fine folks at Exxon-Mobile/Chevron/Shell/Texaco/BP
I was discussing that with my parents a few nights ago, they claim that I’m a pessimist because I don’t want to bring children into this world but my hometown used to have about 5 snowdays a year, now is one every 5 years. The summer was hot but bearable and now the “heat dome” is a normal thing every year, and even when it rains it’s usually catastrophic with large hail and flooding
From summers when we slept under quilts to ones we can’t even sleep almost naked in spring/fall, just in 15 years. From 2 weeks of snow each month on December, February and March to a day of light snow for 3 years and one medium snow once a year, if it comes once again.
Yeah I’m definitely not optimistic about the next 15 years, let alone thinking of raising children beyond that.
They’ve always been a thing in Texas. The difference is now it moves around and the rest of you get to experience the miserable heat as well.
First one I personally remember was 2003 in Europe.
I remember them from the 90s in Europe, they just weren’t called heat domes back then. It was just a “blocking area of high pressure” or some metrologic words. These days the media want to hype everything up, so it needs a catchy name.
Now I don’t mean global warming isn’t real. These things happen regularly now where they were a oddity in the past and things will get very bad in the next 50 years. But it did happen in the past.
It’s more a case of the once in a thousand year storm has become a twice a year kind of thing. But hey, we millennials are used to that right? I’ve personally seen three once in a lifetime economic crashes, with plenty more on the way.
That title is very scary when you Live in Celsius
Nah it’d be fine, just stay in the shade bro.
Spooked me for a moment
Well . . . yeah, the planet’s dying.
We shold probably do something about that? I guess?
Planet will be fine, our ability to live on it not so much.
The entirety of planetary flora and fauna to see you, sir
Life uh… finds a way.
Tell that to the dodo.
Oh individual species may die, entire eco systems may collapse. But life as a process is extremely resilient.
Obviously we don’t want that happening.
I mean, it has survived all the other extinctions so far. It’s easy to be cocky about it.
We just don’t remember us doing it in so messed up a way before.
They survived multiple giant asteroid strikes already. The issue is habitability for humans, but the planet itself is not in danger.
That’s sort of like saying, yes all human and most animal and plant life will perish in a horrible and entirely preventable human-made catastrophe, but the rocks will be okay.
I mean, it’s a lot like saying that. Which - yeah, okay.
Once humans stop dumping green house gasses into the environment (after we’re dead), nature will correct itself. The earth has been through several mass extinction events, and keeps on recovering.
Microorganisms will survive, at the very least, so life on the planet will keep on trucking.
That is what would happen. What won’t happen is “the planet dying” like you claimed above and don’t seem to grasp.
Venus would also like a word.
Edit: For anyone curious, I’m referring to Venus as a potential model for runaway greenhouse effect.
Why does a razor marketed for women want to talk to me, a cis man with a big ol’ hippie beard?
Because she’s got it, yeah baby, she’s got it.
Not that Venus. Venus de Milo would like a word.
Sorry, but you can tell her the usual: I still have no idea where her arms are 🤷
Maybe don’t relay the shrug to her, though, as that could be construed as rather insensitive to her whole situation 😄
C’mon, man, she just needs a hand.
Eh, humans will be dead long before we get anywhere close to venus’s level.
Yes, absolutely, you are right. The comments in this thread and elsewhere are that Earth will be fine. Our current trajectory doesn’t bode well for that assertion.
Earth will be fine. This isn’t the first time global warming has happened, and life survived that and many other mass extinction events. Most larger animals won’t survive, but enough would for life to keep going.
Without humans pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the earth will eventually return to normal. It might take several million years, but that’s nothing considering there’s like 4b years before the sun gets big enough to destroy everything.
Earth will. We and the majority of the current forms of life not so much. The earth has been considerably hotter than now and with considerably more co2. It’s the rate of change that’s the real issue for both us and most life.
Horseshoe crabs will be fine.
“this stuff just happens in waves. As long as it’s not cold!” - some people we’ll be sharing eternal beds with
At least I’m not wasting my time with children or church
Here’s hoping those ass fucks in Texas get to see their fair share this bullshit. While they sit around climate denying they can fucking roast.
The worst part about this, is that some people still don’t use metric.
Edit- tough crowd
That’s why I measure everything in ITS-90 with a monochromatic radiation thermometer.
No, the worst part is that the triple digit temperatures ARE in Celsius!
I’m sure they all will after they read this comment.
I had fun!
I’m American but I grew up in Europe. When it comes to metric units I am absolutely in favor of meters, liters, grams, etc. since they make more sense than Imperial units and are easier to use in most situations.
But for temperature scales while Celsius is great for scientific measurements, Fahrenheit is better for describing the temperatures humans live at.
Celsius is just as good at describing temperatures humans experience. Every 5o is ‘category’:
< -10o Cripes it’s cold!
-10 to -5o Cold
-5 to 0o Snow/ice will melt
0o ‘true’ freezing/melting temperature
0 to 5o Cool
5 to 10o Brisk, jacket optional
10 to 15o Cool, Comfortable to work
15 to 20o Cold house
20 to 25o Typical house temps
25 to 30o Shorts recommended
30 to 35o Hot
35 to 40o Severely hot
'> 40o Crazy hot.
It’s simply just getting used to the values which you have to do with F too anyways, and IMO the C scale just makes far more sense. With F none of the values are intuitive and require you to learn them all.
Agreed. I tried to adjust to Celsius when I moved abroad from the US, and my biggest issue with it was actually in temperature control. I lived in a tiny studio apartment with an in-wall A/C unit, so I had really accurate, nearly instantaneous control of the room temperature except that often it would be too hot at one temperature setting but too cold if I reduced it by a single degree (Celsius). Had the system been in fahrenheit I would have had around three times as much sensitivity to control, which would have been perfect.
I’ve seen a few climate control systems that have options for both celsius and farenheit, but they never give more actual control in one system vs the other. One system I’ve seen adjusted by increments of 0.5 if you had it set to celsius, or increments of 1.0 when set to farenheit. Another adjusted by increments of 1 for celsius, or 2 for farenheit.
Celsius isn’t any more metric than Fahrenheit.
It’s as metric as you can get. It’s a range of 100 based on the liquid state of water at sea level.
I for one welcome the news spicing up weather forecasts with catchy yet threatening labels. We’ve gone from atmospheric rivers to heat domes. Maybe this is what’s needed to get people to consider climate action. They’ll be movie titles soon enough.
The imperial system of measurement is for losers.
I sincerely hope those are burger units.
Calm down, it’s Fahrenheit. Americans and their imperial units.
Yeah, is ad that American outlets covering American weather for the benefit of Americans use units Americans are familiar with.
